Southern Right, Hemel-En-Aarde Valley (South Africa) Pinotage 2012

This new release is the best vintage of Southern Right I’ve come across.  Clean yet with enough complexity to keep it interesting sip after sip, the food-friendly red wine is redolent of thyme, mint and other dried herbs, along with hints of chocolate and well balanced fruitiness.  It’s not at all jammy or extracted, and has only the tiniest suggestion of that mysterious trace of rubberiness that Pinotage often conveys.